“No, of course not; but I’ll keep a sharp lookout, and I may hear or see something that will give me a hint.  What fun it would be to outwit one of the Ryder schemes!”

“Mary! with all your Quaker bringing-up, I do believe you are just pining for what our Jack would call ‘a scrimmage.’”

“Well, I am, if that means getting the better of mischief-makers,” Mary confessed with a laugh.

“But you won’t succeed, if the mischief-makers are Nelly and Lizzy Ryder, Those, girls seem to get the best of everything and everybody.  Think now, for one thing, of their being acquaintances of Marian Selwyn’s, and invited to her birthday party!”

“Oh, well, that is family acquaintance, Anna.  The Ryders have always known the Selwyns, just as we have.  The Selwyns and Ryders and Marcys have lived in Westboro’, and visited each other for ages.”

“I wish I had, and then I might have been invited to this wonderful birthday party,” exclaimed Anna, with a certain earnestness of tone that belied her gay little laugh, and made Mary say regretfully,—­

“I wish I’d known you felt like this last week, I would have had you and Marian ’round to tea, and then you would have got acquainted, and she’d have been sure to have invited you; but it’s too late now, for the party comes off Thursday, you know.”

“Thursday!  Why, Thursday is the first of April..  How funny that one’s birthday should come on the first of April!”

“Funny—­why?”

“Why?  Because it’s April-fool’s day.”

“Oh, I see; but I’m so used to Marian’s birthdays, I don’t always stop to think of that.”

“But don’t some people think of it?  Don’t they sometimes play—­Oh, oh, Mary, Mary, mayn’t this be your clew?  Don’t you believe that Nelly Ryder has been planning an April-fool trick upon Angela in connection with this party?”

Mary, who had been sitting on one of the wide window-seats in the recitation-room, jumped to her feet at this, with a little scream of:  “Oh, Anna, you’ve hit it.  I do believe it is the clew.  Why didn’t I think of April-fool’s day,—­that it would be just the opportunity Nelly Ryder would take advantage of to play a trick, because she could throw it off from herself as a mere April joke, if her hand was found out in it.  Yes, yes, she has planned to drag Angela into some performance or other on the birthday that will make her ridiculous and offensive to Marian,—­sending her on some fool’s errand to Marian, perhaps the night of the party, as somebody sent poor little Tilly Drake last year with a silly message to Clara Harrington that made Clara furious, and mortified Tilly dreadfully.”

“Oh, well, Angela wouldn’t be taken in like that; she’s brighter than Tilly.”

“Angela is just the one to be taken in.  She’s one of the brightest persons I ever saw about books and things of that kind, but she is very innocent and unsuspecting.  Anna, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.  I’m going to see Marian this noon, and I’m going to tell her what I suspect.”